Option field_size_limit

Specifies the Integer field size limit.

Default value:

CSV::DEFAULT_OPTIONS.fetch(:field_size_limit) # => nil

This is a maximum size CSV will read ahead looking for the closing quote for a field. (In truth, it reads to the first line ending beyond this size.) If a quote cannot be found within the limit CSV will raise a MalformedCSVError, assuming the data is faulty. You can use this limit to prevent what are effectively DoS attacks on the parser. However, this limit can cause a legitimate parse to fail; therefore the default value is nil (no limit).

For the examples in this section:

str = <<~EOT
  "a","b"
  "
  2345
  ",""
EOT
str # => "\"a\",\"b\"\n\"\n2345\n\",\"\"\n"

Using the default nil:

ary = CSV.parse(str)
ary # => [["a", "b"], ["\n2345\n", ""]]

Using 50:

field_size_limit = 50
ary = CSV.parse(str, field_size_limit: field_size_limit)
ary # => [["a", "b"], ["\n2345\n", ""]]

Raises an exception if a field is too long:

big_str = "123456789\n" * 1024
# Raises CSV::MalformedCSVError (Field size exceeded in line 1.)
CSV.parse('valid,fields,"' + big_str + '"', field_size_limit: 2048)